Audio and video signal streams, whether carrying analog or digitally encoded information, have come to represent a significant source of consumer information and entertainment. Traditionally such signal streams were provided to consumers over radio frequency bands through use of a transmitter and a receiver. Changes in distribution methods have led to the use of various alternative devices such as cable set top boxes, video recorder/player devices such as cassette recorders and video disc players, or direct live video sources such as home cameras, game systems, and computers, and other alternative devices. As such devices have proliferated, so too have their associated control devices such that consumers are frequently faced with a proliferation of control devices. For example, in “home theater systems” having numerous interconnected devices, several or even all the devices may have its own control device which enables the consumer to control the functionality of the respective device remotely without directly manipulating controls on the device.
In addition, increased availability of networks for the transmission of signal streams has vastly increased the number and variety of information and entertainment services available to consumers. As a result, consumers have trouble keeping informed as to the scheduling of available services. Accordingly, some cable television systems provide a dedicated channel that displays a current programming guide for scheduled services. However, such a channel typically slowly scrolls a limited and fixed amount of information, usually only one to three hours of program scheduling. Moreover, these systems lack any user interface capability and cannot be customized to suit individual consumer's needs so that a consumer must inconveniently wait to potentially view information of interest and then, may not even be provided with information suited to their particular interests.
Some systems enable searching of displayed data, such as the title of a movie or the name of a song, associated with stored video data. However, such systems do not facilitate navigation of large aggregates of video material, or navigation within a particular video material entry, such as a single video program, to enable the consumer to find information of particular interest. A consumer will thus often times have to navigate linearly through a large amount of irrelevant video material in order to find desired video programming, wasting time and effort. Moreover, such excessive navigation likewise requires excessive bandwidth when in communication with a video server, failing to minimize the time necessary for video material retrieval, and thereby slowing the network over which such communication occurs.